


No Such Thing as Fighting Dirty

by leveragehunters (Monkeygreen)



Series: The Things You Know [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Has Nightmares, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Canon Divergence - Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Established Relationship, M/M, Mild Gore, Nightmares, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, POV Bucky Barnes, Protective Bucky Barnes, Sneaky Steve Rogers, Touch-Starved, Touching, i reject Civil War's reality and substitute my own, takes place an indeterminate time after Winter Soldier, the gore is only in the nightmares, they're not the focus of the story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-03
Updated: 2016-04-03
Packaged: 2018-05-30 22:04:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6443635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Monkeygreen/pseuds/leveragehunters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky wants to be touched – he wants Steve to touch him – but seventy years of torture and captivity have left body and mind hardwired to perceive touch as a threat. They're working on it, but Bucky should have remembered that Steve will use every weapon in his arsenal – even the unconventional ones, the ones no one else would consider a weapon – when he's fighting for Bucky.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Such Thing as Fighting Dirty

**Author's Note:**

> Warning for mild gore and blood in Bucky's nightmares. Also, Bucky swears a heck of a lot in his head.
> 
> Okay, so this now has a prequel, _Amends_ , which is part of the series _No Such Thing As Fighting Dirty_ is now part of, which, I'm not quite sure how that that happened. You don't need to read _Amends_ first to make sense of this (particularly given it was written after this).  
>  This starts around ten months after the end of _Amends_.

_The blood was strangely beautiful, reflecting off the gleaming silver. He moved his arm, twisting it, to watch the light's reflection, watching the patterns change as the blood ran through the channels of the metal plates.  There was a knife in his hand, bloody to the hilt. He looked down: bodies, piled around his feet, throats gaping. Not bodies. The same body, repeated over and over again. And every one had his face..._

Bucky surfaced from sleep with a strangled gasp, hands clenched in the covers. _That...okay, at least that one was new.  Fucking nightmares._

He knew sleep wasn't coming back tonight, so he threw back the covers, pulled on a t-shirt to go with his boxers, and padded out into the kitchen.  Their apartment was huge, two top floor apartments converted into one, the common areas gutted into a single open living area, bright and airy. Normally, Bucky loved it; right now he just wished it had something approaching cover. 

The full moon was bright enough to see by so he didn't bother turning on a light, just poured a glass of water and pulled himself up to sit on the counter. Staring out the window at the moonlit clouds scudding across the sky, he took long, slow breaths as he tried to banish the lingering shreds of nightmare.

He knew the instant Steve's bedroom door opened, could picture him hovering there, assessing, deciding whether or not to leave Bucky in peace. Bucky was hoping he'd decide not to, was probably going to call out if he did, part of him aching to let Steve wrap him in his arms and help banish the nightmares.

If it only it were that simple.

Luckily, he didn't have to make that decision. Bucky kept looking out the window as he listened to Steve approach, the corner of his mouth pulling up a little. 

"Can't sleep?"

Bucky looked over. Steve was leaning against the wall, arms loose by his sides, eyes soft, watching him.

"Nope."

"Nightmare?" Steve's question was matter of fact, sympathy lurking way down deep in its depths.

"Yeah," he replied, as matter of fact as Steve. 

"Okay if I come over there?"

Bucky nodded, but his fingers tightened convulsively. 

It wasn't fear. He wasn't afraid of Steve, just like he wasn't afraid of being touched. What fear there was, was purely _for_ Steve because for Bucky touch was a threat. It was a truth engraved on his bones: someone touching him was a precursor to pain and torture and every terrible thing that can be done to a human body and a human mind. It was a truth that was _wrong_ but he couldn't just snap his fingers and unlearn it.

They were working on it, but his body could be a feral animal wired straight into the ghost of the Winter Soldier, neither entirely under his control. It was frustrating as hell because Bucky _wanted_ Steve to touch him, he craved it, but sometimes it worked and sometimes it went wrong and Bucky couldn't always tell how it was going to go.

Things would be simpler if Bucky could touch Steve but for seventy years Bucky had only touched people who were about to die bloody. It made him hesitate, pull back. He was better once Steve was touching him, which was a particularly nasty sort of irony.

 _Fucking Hydra_. Bucky's knuckles were white around the glass.

Steve paused in the middle of the kitchen, eyeing Bucky thoughtfully, gaze flicking from Bucky's face to his hands.  

Bucky gave a quick shake of his head, forcefully banishing his thoughts, and set the glass down. "You coming over here or what?"

Still looking thoughtful, Steve walked the rest of the way to where Bucky was sitting on the counter. Bucky waited for Steve to reach out for him. It was their routine: Steve would touch him—on the shoulder, the hand, the knee, somewhere relatively neutral—from a measured distance and they would assess and move on from there. It was careful, controlled, safe.  Bucky was left blinking in surprise when instead Steve gracefully dropped to sit cross-legged on the floor at his feet, body open and loose. "What?"

Steve just smiled his small smile and slowly reached out to lay one hand against Bucky's bare ankle. Bucky's breath stuttered because _How are you gonna defend yourself from down there?_ It slammed into the adrenaline spike from being touched, the one that said _lash out_ _fight protect yourself_ , and the two waged a complicated skirmish that left Bucky's heart beating way too fast.

Steve sat calmly at his feet, the warmth of his fingers a point of peace in the middle of the conflict, and Bucky finally dropped his head to rest in his metal hand with a sigh.

"Okay?" Steve asked quietly.

Bucky nodded and Steve carefully wrapped his fingers around Bucky's ankle, thumb rubbing against the talus, brought his other hand up to cradle Bucky's calf. Bucky's body was going soft and pliant, his thoughts going fuzzy, under Steve's touch. Cautiously, he rested his right hand on Steve's head, curled his fingers into Steve's hair, and let his eyes slip shut. He knew this couldn't last, it never did; the feral animal was subdued for the moment, temporarily tamed, but it was going to wake up.

Steve's fingers were gently stroking his skin and he lost himself, smiling as he felt Steve kiss first one shin and then the other. _Sap_.

Bucky didn't know how long it lasted but his smile faded with the returning tension. He knew Steve felt it too, attuned as he was to every change in Bucky's body. Steve's hands fell away and, with a last gentle pat, he rose to his feet.

Steve was silent for a minute, then, "You know, we own chairs."

Bucky raised an eyebrow at him.

"I'm just saying," Steve said as he leaned against the counter next to Bucky, close enough Bucky could feel the heat radiating from him. "Chairs, Buck. They're a thing."

"Make me a hot chocolate and I'll think about sitting in one of your chairs."

It got him a grin and Bucky stayed where he was while he watched Steve make hot chocolate from scratch, grating the chocolate, heating the milk on the stove. He'd be able to sleep now, probably; could carry the memory back to bed with him, summon it up and use it to hold the nightmares at bay.

 

***              *             ***

 

It had not been a good month. Bucky had been sleeping badly, nightmares that were mostly memories coming thick and fast.  Naps—Steve's suggestion—mostly left him feeling groggy and irritable, but he didn't have any better ideas. Which was why he was stretched out on the couch, lying on his stomach, hovering in that strange twilight between asleep and awake. He was vaguely aware of the sound of the front door, but he recognised Steve's footsteps so it didn't pull him closer towards waking.  They stopped in front of the couch and were replaced with a rustling noise Bucky didn't recognise but, again, _Steve_ , so he didn't worry about it.  

A light weight settled over him and his eyes snapped open. Steve was putting a blanket on him _because of course he was_. "Going to tuck me in?" Bucky asked with a smirk.

"If you want me to," Steve replied with an answering smirk.

Bucky kind of did. "You're the one that wanted me to take a nap; you'd better make sure I'm doing it right."

Bucky expected Steve to lean over and touch his shoulder, testing the waters. Instead, he crouched next to the couch, head tilted as he studied Bucky, his gaze intent. As Bucky watched, Steve's body went soft and loose, his posture relaxing, before he rested his hand—moving slowly, giving him plenty of time to tell him to stop—against Bucky's left side.

Bucky's arms were folded under his head. He could smash his metal elbow down and take out Steve, Steve who was in no way braced for an attack, who was completely vulnerable— _like a goddamned idiot_ —in a heartbeat. His adrenaline spiked at the touch and he could visualise it, the flash of metal, the blood and bone, and he wanted to snarl.  Snarl at Steve, for being so stupid, snarl at himself because he was fucking sick of this. He just wanted to be able to touch Steve, wanted Steve to touch him, without all of this bullshit.

Steve waited it out, patient and calm. As Bucky's breathing slowed, as his muscles loosened, Steve slid his hand to the small of Bucky's back, pushing down, exerting a gentle pressure. It grounded him. "I'm so sick of this," Bucky muttered.

"I know." Steve's voice was gentle and he moved his hand to rub soothing circles on the back of Bucky's neck.

Bucky nodded and pressed his forehead harder against his arms. When he felt Steve's hands lift off of him, then begin actually tucking him in, fitting the edges of the blanket carefully around his body, he turned his head, both eyebrows raised. "Really?"

Steve nodded and replied, tone mockingly severe, "Naps should be taken very seriously."

Bucky's answering sigh was half choked laugh and he curled over to press his forehead against Steve's forearm. Steve kissed Bucky's temple, resting there, his breath ruffling Bucky's hair. The last shreds of tension bled out of Bucky and he sighed again, stretched a little, and Steve shifted, began running one hand in long, slow strokes down Bucky's back. 

Bucky was warm, his body going boneless under Steve's touch. As Steve brought his other hand up to run his fingers through Bucky's hair the warmth spread through his brain, washing his thoughts in a gentle haze.  He knew he couldn't go to sleep like this, but as he closed his eyes he could feel himself drifting back into that twilight space.

 

***              *             ***

 

Steve had never been the poster boy for self-preservation, but this was something else. He was acting like he'd forgotten he was a soldier, a fighter. It was as if the moment he was touching Bucky, or thinking about touching Bucky, or there was the possibility that Bucky might need to be touched he'd forget all his training, start leaving himself open, off-balance, defenceless.

It was driving Bucky crazy. If it also seemed to be triggering fewer bad reactions to being touched that wasn't really important in the face of _Steve Rogers being a fucking idiot._

If they got past the first touch, if Bucky could settle, it was good. It was so good. If they didn't, that's when things could go wrong.  Steve could read Bucky's body better than Bucky could, most days, could sense the subtle difference between _okay, but this will be hard_ and _this will not in any way be okay_. There was a hair's breadth between them but Steve could almost always tell.

 _Almost_.

The possibility of almost was why Steve couldn't keep being stupid like this. It was going to get him hurt.

 

***              *             ***

 

Bucky tore himself out of the nightmare. _Jesus_.  He scrubbed his right hand over his face, deliberately not looking at the metal one which had featured so prominently in tonight's technicolour journey to the outskirts of hell.  His adrenaline was high, too high, he could feel the feral animal howling behind his eyes, the Winter Soldier too close to the surface.  

Unable to hold still, he threw himself out of bed, paced around his room, then shook his head and headed out into the apartment, pacing a circuit around the living area, taking slow breaths in and out, striving for calm.

Steve appeared, not saying anything, just watching.

Bucky stopped, turned his head, staring at him through the fall of his hair, the plates in his arm shifting, every muscle taut. 

The correct response to the ghost of the Winter Soldier standing in the living room is to brace yourself and prepare to fight. It was not to shift your weight so you were off balance. It was not to open your body to expose your weak spots. It was sure as shit not to let your arms dangle by your sides, muscles loose, relaxed, defenceless...

He'd been doing it on purpose.

 _The fucker._ It was enough to shock Bucky completely back to here and now, to blow through the adrenaline and the nightmare and the everything.

He took a deep breath, let it out slowly. "Go back to bed, Steve," he said, voice flat, amazed at how even it sounded.

Steve went. It was something Bucky loved about him, that he would turn and go simply because Bucky needed him to.

He'd been doing it on purpose.

Bucky didn't know what to do with that.

 

***              *             ***

 

"Can you cut the carrots?"

Steve was holding out a bag of carrots and a knife. Bucky took them automatically, reached for a cutting board, and started slicing them for the stew. Steve liked it when they cooked together, just simple things.  It was quiet, companionable, and Bucky didn't mind putting his skills with a knife to a peaceful purpose.

Bucky sliced carrots quietly for a few minutes then looked at Steve, who was chopping potatoes, fingers graceful on the large chef's knife. It had been three weeks since Bucky had figured it out. He had yet to say anything, but he'd been watching Steve's eyes every time it happened, and what Steve was doing was very, very deliberate.

It was the feral cats all over again— _and he wasn't sure whether he was glad to have this memory or not_ —the ones that had lived in the alley behind their tenement. The ones Steve'd spent hours taming, patiently showing them he wasn't a threat. Difference was the cats couldn't have given Steve any more than a scratch. If Steve wasn't prepared Bucky could actually hurt him. "Hey, Steve?"

"Yeah?"

Bucky put down the carrot he was holding but kept the knife— _because he was making a goddamned point here_ —and took the two steps necessary to put him behind Steve.  Steve let go of his knife, slid it across the counter, and turned to face Bucky, shifting his weight to one leg, tilting his head back, and dropped his arms to his sides. 

Bucky reached to touch him but couldn't quite make himself, leaving his right hand hanging in mid-air between them. Steve, after a moment's assessment, grasped it. The adrenaline spike was barely present, the feral animal gave a bare grumble of protest, as Steve drew Bucky's hand in to rest over his heart.

Bucky curled his fingers, pressing them into Steve's chest. "I know what you’re doing."

Guileless blue eyes looked back at him. "No idea what you’re talking about." Steve lifted Bucky's hand to gently kiss his palm then let go. "Finish cutting those carrots, will you?"

Bucky also knew it was working. He was just like those alley cats. They’d run like the devil was after them from anyone else. The minute Steve showed up they’d be rubbing against his legs and purring up a storm.

Bucky wasn’t purring, but...

But.

Later, as they sat at the table together, Steve’s leg was pressed against Bucky's, knee to hip, had been for a good twenty minutes. Bucky felt no threat, felt no need to fight, to defend himself. He just felt content.

 

***              *             ***

 

Bucky had fallen asleep on the couch.  It had been another week of nightmares— _and he was going to have to deal with them at some point_ —leaving him exhausted. A week of nightmares just like this one.

_The feel of hair in his fingers as he pulled back, drawing the throat tight for the blade. The screaming of his target as he slit her husband's throat, so she would know the true cost of betrayal._

Her screaming was too loud. That's why he didn't hear Steve calling his name.

Had he been able to escape, he'd have known Steve was standing over him, hesitating. Known Steve couldn't let him stay in the nightmare but didn't know how to wake him, not when he couldn’t— _wouldn't_ —touch him. 

If he'd been able to see past the blood's blinding brightness, he'd have seen Steve pick up a pillow from a chair and gently toss it at him. Would have known the touch against his leg was just a pillow.

But he couldn't, and he didn't, and it wasn't precisely Bucky who came up out of the nightmare.  He leapt off the couch with beautiful, lethal grace, soundless but for the plates shifting in his arm, realigning themselves for war.  He had no weapons, they didn't carry weapons in the house, but he didn't need them.  Eyes locked on Steve, there was little recognition; he was poised on a knife's edge, one wrong move, one wrong word, was all it would take to push him over.

Steve looked back at him, eyes intent, focussed. Steve, who had a bare chest, bare feet, no protection but a pair of loose cotton pants.  Steve, whose expression was gentle but determined.

Slowly, bare feet sliding against the floor, he shifted forward, moving closer to Bucky, only a few inches, just enough to bring him within Bucky's reach.  Slow enough Bucky didn't quite register it as hostile, not quite enough to trigger an attack, but his arm plates whirred and his hands curled into fists.

Steve stopped. Eyes never leaving Bucky's, he slowly sank to his knees, tipped his head back to expose the pale length of his throat. The backs of his hands he pressed to the floor to reveal the delicate veins in wrists.

Every action was precise, deliberate, rendering himself defenceless. 

Bucky shuddered as he came roaring back to the surface because _Steve fucking Rogers was going to get himself killed_. The feral animal, the ghost of the Winter Soldier, they stuttered in his mind under the swirl of adrenaline, a whirling skirmish of conflicting impulses to _fight_ to _protect yourself_ to _protect Steve_. In the midst of it all Bucky felt something click into place, felt them both recognise Steve, Steve was not a threat, Steve was never a threat, Steve was...Steve _was_.

Bucky felt them both fade, the adrenaline and the rage and the killing edge pouring away, leaving him shaky and breathless.  His hands unclenched and he was dimly aware of the plates in his arm resettling themselves as he stared at Steve.

Steve, who was kneeling before him. Not helpless, never helpless, but willingly vulnerable, as vulnerable as he could make himself.  

Everything was so clear.

He suddenly understood completely how Steve's damn alley cats must have felt.

Bucky closed his eyes, took several deep breaths to settle himself before he opened them again to once more meet Steve's.

Steve, who would always fight, with fists and shield and any weapon that came to hand. For Bucky, touch was a threat, a trigger to violence, so Steve had turned himself into its opposite and used _that_ to fight. For Bucky.

Steve, who had done this for him.

Steve, who'd been deliberately putting himself in danger for the past six months.

It took one short stride to close the distance between them because Steve had placed himself inside Bucky's reach. _Idiot._ Only Steve's eyes moved, never leaving Bucky's as Bucky stopped in front of him, and they were clear and deep. Movements slow, deliberate—giving Steve time to pull away, giving himself time to see if he could actually touch—Bucky delicately pressed the tips of his metal fingers to Steve's throat, barely brushing the skin.

Bucky couldn't feel the heat, but he could feel the beat of Steve's pulse and it was slow, even. Steve didn't pull away, didn't move, his eyes calm as he looked up at Bucky.

Bucky's eyes narrowed. "Sure you don’t want to handcuff yourself to something while you’re at it?" It came out low and snarky and there was an answering gleam in Steve's eyes, there and gone in a heartbeat, but when he replied, his voice was steady, tone serious.

"Would it help?"

He meant it. He _actually meant it_. Bucky was going to kill him. He drew in a long shuddery breath and let his hand fall, dragged his other hand through his hair, resisted the urge to reach out and shake Steve. "Of all the stupid—. What the hell have you been thinking?"

"I've been thinking that there's nothing I wouldn't do for you." Steve reached for Bucky's right hand, giving Bucky time to pull away, smiling as Bucky instead met him half way. "Been thinking that I had to try something different." He tugged gently. "Come here?" Bucky went willingly, a controlled fall, landing between Steve's knees.

Bucky sucked in a breath as he tipped forward against Steve's chest, tensed slightly, but the adrenaline spike, the urge to fight, didn't come and when Steve carefully slipped an arm around him, all he felt was warm and the urge to move closer. He freed his hand from Steve's so he could tentatively press it against Steve's chest and the feel of bare skin, Steve's tiny intake of breath, sent little sparks through his brain.

"It was a stupid damned plan," Bucky said, the impact of his words undercut somewhat when he leaned his forehead against Steve's collarbone, undercut even more when he couldn't stop a tiny smile as Steve's hand slid into his hair to cradle the back of his head.

"Pretty sure it worked," Steve pointed out. Despite his words, Bucky could feel Steve's touch was light, ready to immediately pull back if Bucky needed him to.  Neither of them were stupid. They both knew Bucky wasn't suddenly going to be magically fixed.  Bucky knew it was going to be easier, he knew something fundamental had shifted, with _Steve_ and _touch_. Proving it to himself, Bucky touched his fingertips to Steve's sternum, feeling only the tiniest twinge of hesitation which faded as he pressed harder, felt Steve draw breath in reaction. And that, well, that made Steve right, his plan— _his goddamned stupid plan_ —had worked. But Bucky knew, they both knew, _easier_ wasn't the same as easy.

"Not the point," he muttered. 

"It kind of is," Steve replied gently, tucking Bucky's hair behind his ear and smoothing one finger down his neck. Bucky shivered and Steve started to pull his hand away, but Bucky reached up to grab it, pulling it down to hold it between both of his. 

"Steve?"

"Yeah?"

Bucky's voice was low and serious, a warning, and he tightened his hands around Steve's. "Don't ever do it again."

Steve was silent for a long time and Bucky started to push away, ready to shake him, ready to...he didn't know, but Steve ran his other hand down Bucky's spine, gently holding him in place. "Okay," he said quietly.  "Okay, I won't."  After a moment, he added, "But I'm not sorry."

Bucky wasn't surprised. "You always did fight dirty."

Steve pulled back far enough to look him in the eyes. "No such thing as fighting dirty, Buck." Steve pressed a kiss to Bucky's forehead, then rested his forehead against Bucky's.  "Just fighting like you want to win."

**Author's Note:**

> The title is taken from a Seanan McGuire quote I had in my head while working on this. Full disclosure, Steve's last line is adapted from it, but I'm one hundred percent positive he'd totally agree, at least where Bucky is concerned:
> 
>  _There’s no such thing as fighting dirty. There’s fighting like you want to live, and fighting like you want to die. If you’ve got anything to live for—anything at all—I suggest you try the first way. The people you love will thank you for it._  
>  -Seanan McGuire, _Discount Armageddon_
> 
> Thanks for reading :). I'm also working on a sequel to _No Such Thing as Fighting Dirty_ which shouldn’t be too far away. I guess it's a series now? I'm not really sure how that happened.


End file.
